Kendal 11.

Chester 0.

KENDAL played Chester at home in the North Women’s West 2 and romped to an 11-0 victory.

As the scoreline suggests, Kendal dominated the fixture with excellent passing and movement the key features of the performance.

Within seconds of the start Kendal were ahead, Emma Taggart opening the goal fest to be. Attack after attack wore down the Chester defence.

Andrea Elvey added Kendal's second with a sweep into the far corner, Vicky Jones supplied a third from a short-corner and Elvey scored her second, converting after a one-on-one with the keeper for a 4-0 interval lead.

Chester, to their credit, never gave up and made the Kendal defence work, winning a few short-corners.

However, Kendal continued to add to their tally - Vicky Jones showing what a fine finisher she is as she bagged a tremendous six goals in all - all but one coming in the second half. Emma Taggart scored a second and Elvey claimed a hat-trick.

Ailsa Wright took the Kendal player award, with Laura Morris also catching the eye with a solid display in defence.

Crewe 1.

Kirkby Stephen 0

>KIRKBY Stephen ladies were at Crewe in North West 2 on Saturday, and despite last year's 5-1 defeat, the Kirkby girls were confident of taking the points in this renewal. Applying pressure from the outset, Kirkby did well in a thrilling end-to-end first half as both teams battled to make their mark. But despite numerous efforts on goal, neither side found the net and the game remained goalless at half time.

Kirkby were determined not to let their hard work go to waste and Lucy Potter and Lilly Prime worked tirelessly through the centre. Litini Newcombe and Lisa Shaw linked up down the left, while Jen Sayer and Andrea Dixon did the same down the right. Crewe also pressed hard and, from a penalty corner, Kirkby's Debbie Barr made a brave save on the line. However, a Crewe player followed up to force the ball into the goal. Knowing they did not deserve to lose, Kirkby battled tremendously hard but simply ran out of time.

Barrow 0.

Ambleside 2.

BOASTING good runs behind them, both sides were keen to continue in the winning vein. Ambleside travelled with only the bare minimum of a squad, but started strongly and forced Barrow to defend deep for a large part of the first period.

A controversial goal broke the deadlock. When the ball was played into the D, Donna Robinson fired the ball into the back of the net. Barrow appealed, claiming it had hit her foot, but the goal was allowed to stand.

Ambleside remained 1-0 ahead at half time, but Barrow came out after the break and forced a couple of penalty corners, which the Ambleside defence dealt with capably.

Though starting to tire, Ambleside continued to work well together and Robinson netted again with what she believed to be a clean strike, but the umpires disallowed the goal, deeming it had come off a Barrow stick.

Both teams worked hard in the last quarter. Barrow were snuffed out in the midfield by hard work from Marge Munday and Helen Barber, who jointly took the Ambleside players' player award.

Ambleside were finally rewarded with a second goal when Chelsea Daley dazzled with her skills, taking on several defenders before running across the keeper and chipping the ball back over her into the net.

n Ambleside’s development team hosted Kirkby Stephen in the Netherwood League and came away with a creditable 1-1 draw.

Neither team was able to capitalise on good build-up play and Ambleside's Rebecca Camp, Jade Stanworth and Bryony Halcrow did well in defence. The second half continued as the first half until Ambleside’s Donna Robinson broke through to calmly shoot past the goalie.

Kirkby got more into the game with Rebecca Brabins working tirelessly in midfield and, following a goalmouth scramble, Hannah Walker scored to level the game.